Column: Jobless rates are nothing to brag about

By JOHN M. CRISP For Tribune News Service

Monday, February 18, 2019

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At every rally, during every speech, during many Cabinet meetings and often on Twitter, President Donald Trump asserts a fact as evidence of the nation’s strong economy: Unemployment rates for black and Hispanic Americans are at record lows.

This is largely correct.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in January 2019 the unemployment rate for Hispanics was 4.9 percent; for blacks, 6.8 percent; and for whites, 3.5 percent. All are close to all-time lows.

This sounds like good news for blacks and Hispanics, but these figures call for context.

For at least 50 years, the BLS has monitored unemployment rates for whites, blacks and Hispanics, which track together in predictable ways. But for nearly all of that period, the unemployment rate for blacks was approximately double the rate for whites.

For example, in February 2009, President Barack Obama’s first full month in office, the white unemployment rate was 7.6 percent; for blacks it was 13.7 percent, a ratio almost identical to the current one.

And while the unemployment rate for all groups is healthy, the current decline in the rate began in 2010, which calls into question the impact of Trump’s policies on the overall rate, as well as on the rates for blacks and Hispanics.

So Trump is probably taking more credit than he deserves for the impact of his policies on the overall employment rate, and there’s nothing in his program that is particularly conducive to more employment for blacks and Hispanics.

In fact, I always cringe a little when I hear Trump make that particular claim. Why do we crow about a labor structure that always has a higher unemployment rate for minorities, and in the case of blacks, typically double?

Of course, the unemployment rate describes only who has a job and says nothing about how much money they make. Here, again, there’s not much to brag about: According to Census Bureau data, in 2017 the median income for whites was $68,145; for Hispanics, $50,486; and for blacks, $40,258.

But the most staggering differences among these demographic groups are exemplified by wealth accumulation, the most revealing index on economic well-being.

Last month the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive Washington, D.C., think tank, published “Dream Deferred,” a report on wealth accumulation based on data from the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances. “Dream Deferred” describes in considerable detail the comparative wealth of Americans according to ethnicity, as well as the striking increase in recent decades in the wealth of the richest .1 percent. It discusses the sources of this disparity and suggests methods of reducing the wealth gap.

The report depicts the racial wealth divide in various ways, but the starkest version is embodied in these staggering numbers: In 2016, the median household wealth of all American families — that is, what they own minus what they owe — is $81,704. The median household wealth for white families is $146,984; for Hispanic families, $6,591; for black families, $3,557.

How do we account for this stunning disparity?

It’s tempting to blame individuals or even imagined differences among the races. But the accumulation of wealth depends largely on public policies that support fair wages, access to education, access to dependable financial markets for savings and investment, and fair housing — home equity represents two-thirds of household wealth.

Unfortunately, very little attention is currently paid to public policies that could reduce the racial wealth divide, or, for that matter, the widening divide between our richest citizens and our poorest, of whatever race.

“Post-racial” is a term that is as elusive as it is aspirational. After the election of Obama some fantasized about a post-racial era, but the arrival of that happy dispensation has been delayed; we still await the day when the unemployment rate no longer needs to be described according to racial demographics.

In the meantime, Trump should stop bragging about an unemployment rate for black Americans that is twice the rate of whites. It rings hollow against the backdrop of our enormous wealth disparities.

More than anything, those disparities reflect the persistent vile legacy of our nation’s original sin: racism.

John M. Crisp is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service. He can be reached at jcrispcolumns@gmail.com.